


Now I Know

by circusgymgirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Sisters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24746332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circusgymgirl/pseuds/circusgymgirl
Summary: You don't know what you've got til it's gone.





	Now I Know

She’s gone.

The words reverberate inside my head. They are my words, but I can barely remember speaking them. Nothing from the last two weeks stands out. Nothing but the body. Nothing but the look on her face, the dried tears on her cheeks when we found her. Nothing but the note in her pocket, the one I still can’t make myself read.

Momma wakes me up for the funeral. I get dressed in silence, tears streaming down my face as I put on the black dress I bought for a choir concert that I never went to. It was last week. I think it was last week. I can’t keep track of the passage of time anymore. Mom drives us to the graveyard and we’re all silent. 

I feel as though I myself am a ghost floating through the whole affair. I read from a script I don’t remember writing. Other people say things, but I can’t seem to make myself listen. It all feels surreal and like maybe it’s a dream. But the wind is harsh, making the blood rush to my face as it whips past. I can feel the creases in Momma’s hand as she squeezes mine, and I know this is real. 

The last funeral I went to, I was thirteen. It was for my great grandfather. Mom cried and Momma comforted her. Zora and I stood off to the side, dry-eyed and confused. We didn’t know him well. Mom hadn’t talked to him since she got married and he refused to come. But she still cried. 

It was Zora who held things together then, somehow. Begging for ice cream on the way home, needing help with her homework and someone to play soccer with her out in the yard. It was easier for Mom when she had things to do and whether or not she realized it, Zora was the one who needed things while Momma and I tried to give her space and let her grieve. 

Now Zora’s thirteen and she’s the one in the casket. I don’t remember the last time I actually talked to her. Mom and Momma are crying. But I’m still dry-eyed. This time, it’s because I feel empty. This time it’s because I can’t cry. I am the only one left to be strong. 

I drive us home. By now, the tears are threatening to spill over. I don’t know why they didn’t come while I watched the box holding her body get lowered into the ground, but I can’t fully force them back when I stop at the grocery store for milk and eggs. I go through the self checkout to avoid the looks and the pity. Even if they don’t know, the look they give sixteen-year-old girls crying in the grocery store is not what I need to see right now. 

* * *

I was three years old when Zora was born. We are both adopted, and we look nothing alike. She’s Black, but my skin is often darker than hers. I don’t know where I come from. My parents left the hospital with her the day she was born to a girl barely older than I am now, but they didn’t get me until I’d been alive six months. 

I was six the first time I remember getting asked how we were related. It was then I realized how different my family was from most everybody else's. Two moms with daughters who looked nothing like them or each other. But my moms taught me to take pride in our differences instead of being ashamed. 

I was ten years old when the two of us flew alone together for the first time. I remember sitting on the plane and resenting how I had to be her babysitter. How I had to read to her and order her food and walk her back to the bathroom. But I’d promised Momma that I’d do it, so I did. 

Zora fell asleep on me halfway through the flight, and I couldn’t move my right arm because her head was resting upon it. I remember saying I’d never fly next to her again, because even when she was asleep and should’ve been leaving me alone, she was still keeping me from doing what I wanted. 

I was fourteen when Zora started asking to be homeschooled. In the transition from elementary to middle school, her best friend had switched to homeschooling, and she wanted to as well. But Mom and Momma both work full time, and we thought she just wanted to copy her friend. We never considered there might be more to it. 

I was fifteen when she first mentioned the bullying. She didn’t mention what they were saying to her, but preteens find a million different things to pick on other kids about, and Zora had plenty of things that made her obviously different. She was an easy target. And I didn’t do anything about it. 

I still don’t know what was going on. I remember her coming home in tears. I remember her asking to do things with me and I remember blowing her off. I remember the texts I left unread when she was home alone after school and wanted me there with her. I remember when she gave up. 

* * *

I lock myself in the bathroom when I get home. The note is still clutched in my fist. I’ve had it all day, and every time I go to look at it, I can’t bring myself to open and read it. There are still tears sliding silently down my face. I’ve been crying off and on since they found the body. Half the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I taste the salt in the tears as they slide into my mouth.

I flatten out the note on the counter, pressing it down until it stays mostly flat. I still don’t look at it. 

I turn on the water before I step into the shower. It’s hot enough that it’s steaming and I wince when I step under it, but I don’t change the temperature. Instead, I let the cascade of water wash away the tears. I stay in there until the water gets too cold for me to stand it. Then I wrap a towel around myself and step out of the shower, pushing dyed-purple hair out of my eyes. 

I didn’t turn on the fan, so the mirror is all fogged up. I reach a hand out and wipe a space on the mirror. Water drips from where I wiped. I stare at myself without seeing anything, the space in front of me blurry and distorted. 

I blink a couple times and everything comes back into focus. And then my eyes fall to the note. Zora’s handwriting is usually pretty and neat, but these two words are scrawled there as if intentionally imperfect. 

_I'M SORRY_

I take a step backwards and run into the wall. And then I’m doubled over, gasping for breath as I sob. The towel slips down to the ground, and I follow, curling into a ball against the wall. The tears pour out of my eyes and I can barely breathe, pulling in sips of air between every sob. And it hurts but I’m relieved to finally be able to let things out. And I hate that this is relief. 

Because she shouldn’t be apologizing. I should be apologizing. For blowing her off. For looking down on her because she’s younger than me. For not taking her seriously. For all the things she will never get to do, for all the advice I will never get to give. 

Because I will never get to make this up. This isn’t a mistake that can be rectified. An apology won’t change anything. This is final and there is nothing that I can do about it. I can’t go back and change this, and nothing I do going forward will change this. For all the years she will never get to live.

I will always regret that I never treasured her. I will always wonder what could have been. I will always apologize for what I didn’t do and what I did. But that will never change the present. It will never change the facts. 

She’s gone. 


End file.
